Supervision of Children in Peru

 Throughout the entirety of the trip, I have been noticing that children are not as supervised in Peru than they are in the United States. This is not a moral judgement on the parents, just an observation of different cultural parenting styles. I noticed this most jarringly when we were in Aguas Calientes, and were walking around at night (maybe around 10 or 11pm) and there were toddlers running around in the street unsupervised. This was surprising to me because there are thousands of tourists bustling through, so you would think that maybe the town would be a bit dangerous (I have no idea how dangerous Aguas Clients actually is). We saw many boys playing soccer in the street in Pisac, and I continually saw children playing by themselves in the streets of Cusco, especially by the market. Perhaps there is more trust in the local community in Peru, or less fear of kidnapping? In the US there is an ever present fear that children will be kidnapped, and many children are kept under close supervision. In the US parents are obsessed with watching their children 24/7: they watch their kids on baby monitors at night, don’t let their children play alone in the streets. Which is better: hyper-vigilance or under-vigilance? I appreciated that parents in Peru gave their children space to play, I think that it fosters creativity to give children freedom.